New England Sketches by Mike Bozart - HTML preview
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New England Sketches
a sextet of shorts
by Mike Bozart
© 2024 Mike Bozart
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another pSecret pSociety pshort pstory
Maine, Mainly by Mike Bozart (Agent 33) | mid-March 2024
Maine, Mainly
by Mike Bozart
Saturday, July 1st, 2023 in Bar Harbor, Maine. It’s 7:01 AM, already mostly sunny, and 59° Fahrenheit (15° Celsius) as newlyweds, 31-year-old, lean-strapping, German American Walter Z. Q. Grauschimmelhaus and 29-year-old, well-nigh-petite, Penobscot American Tehya commence a long-planned hike up the eastern face of Dorr Mountain from the Emery Path trailhead behind Sieur de Monts Spring. They trek zig-zaggedly up the rather steep initial incline on granite slabs and carefully inset steps in silence, slightly hungover from last night in a somewhat-refined-yet-quirky Main Street tavern. Should have stopped after the third shot, but hubby wouldn’t relent. Durham. [Maine] Runaround Pond leeches. /
Really overdid it on the liquor. Should have just stuck with beer. That bartender sure did an impressive impersonation of Lloyd. [from The Shining] ‘I’m just a rock, feller – not a Rockefeller.’ A splendid splash of self-dep[recation]. Wonder how the remainder of his life unfolds.
Thirty-one percent up the 1,111-foot (339 meters) ascent, they reach a shelf-like rock formation with expansive views.
They stop to take a water break. Both are winded. Whew!
That sure got the blood flowing. Wonder how the wife feels. /
Sure seems steeper now. Am I already in physical decline?
“When was the last time that you did this hike, hon?” Walter asks his dark-haired, blue-jeaned bride. Why’d he ask that?
“Oh, it must have been a dozen years ago. I was a senior in high school. It was a chilly April Sunday in 2011.” Who was she with? All girls? The first boyfriend? Alone? No, don’t ask.
Savor the mystery.
“Do you miss living in Ellsworth, [about 21 miles (34 km) northwest] babe?” What’s he getting at? Does he want to move here? Full-time? [Both are working remotely.]
“I do miss the summers in Maine. So much cooler than Charlotte. But, I don’t miss the winters. Brrrr … Too cold for me now. I think North Carolina has altered my blood.” A plasma change? All in the mind. Always in a bind.
“Yeah, summers here must be really nice,” Walter concurs.
“Just noticed on my phone that the high down in town will only be 72° [Fahrenheit; 22° Celsius] today. And probably only 66° [Fahrenheit; 19° Celsius] on the peak. Some great numbers for July in America. Ninety-nine percent of the country is roasting. Funnel this sublime day into a cork-able
bottle.” What an odd adage. Wonder if he secretly wants a kid. Do I want one? Will I regret not having a child when I’m 50? If I ‘accidentally’ got pregnant … Then what? Hmmm …
Just don’t know. Yet.
“Well, ready to get back at it, comrade?” Tehya implores.
Comrade? Camaraderie.
“Sure, seductive sergeant; lead the way,” Walter replies while glancing at the Porcupine Islands. Seductive. Ah, so sweet. / Quite a place. Eden. So unique for the American Atlantic coast. Nowhere else with such verticality. Kinda like a chunk of that craggy Oregon coast. Portland East and Portland West. Though, those two are definitely dissimilar.
Tehya begins Homan’s Path at the junction with a boardwalked Jesup Path and an eerily vacant dirt road. They are soon marching up more granite steps. Can almost hear my ancestors groaning. And moaning. Again. / Nothing happens for a reason. Yeah, those granules are taking hold of my brain. Just hope that I didn’t mix in too much.
Walter stops under a bridge-like granite formation. “Imagine, if you kindly will, this slab of rock giving way right now,” he proposes. “To what height might I be reduced, sweetie?”
How gruesome! Carly’s [a friend] warning: ‘Careful, girl; he’s weird’. Though, will take weird over run-of-the-mill boring.
Going to stun him.
“Oh, I’d say that you’d instantly be mashed down to a five-eighths-of-an-inch-thick [1.59 cm] crêpe of flesh and bone fragments, hubby,” Tehya dryly states. “Park maintenance staff would just high-pressure-hose your semi-solid remains downslope. After a good downpour, they would remove the yellow tape and barricades and reopen the trail.” Brutal.
“So cold. And so harsh and heartless. You wouldn’t be in the depths of despair, dear wife? You wouldn’t be sobbing for weeks?” Walter has a somber expression. But it soon cracks. He starts laughing. Louder. He’s on something. So obvious. He needs to quiet down. Glad no one is around us.
“Ok, what did you take this time, my kooky cosmonaut? Be honest with me.” Tehya is slightly perturbed.
“It’s just a neural nebulizer. It’s over-the-counter stuff; you can buy it at most head shops. Though, I do strategically modify it a modicum. But, don’t worry, darling; I’m not going
to jump off the mountain. Well, not without you.” Walter starts laughing again. “It’s called dark humor, hon, but it’s not all black as night; there’s a light at the end of the narrow tunnel … that is rapidly approaching.” Walter guffaws gratuitously again. This is going to be a long – make that, very long – day at this rate.
“Well, it’s best to confront your issues head-on, they say,”
Tehya rejoins. Zoink.
“A mighty fine return-of-service winner,” Walter concedes.
“You won round one, my lovely ace-in-the-hole.” Ace in the hole? Was hubby a poker player? Sure hope he doesn’t become an online sports bettor: a road to ruin.
“Oh, I didn’t realize this hike was going to be a contest of wits,” Tehya divulges. And then concocts an exaggerated smirk. We also get penalized with people like us. A weedy yarn lost in The Tarn. Where would it have ever gone?
Astray. A-frayed. Afraid of sinking. Away.
After passing under a second such bridge, the rocky trail leads into a boreal forest. Twenty-six minutes later, after strolling up stonework switchbacks, the couple arrives at another junction with Emery Path. They take a second beverage break. Though, this time sans conversation; both seem lost in thought. Should I tell hubby now that I took something, too? Nah, keep it a secret for now. / Wonder what wifey is thinking. She suddenly seems pensive. Is she mad at me? Probably should clamp it down.
“Ready for the final climb, hon?” Walter queries after seven minutes.
“Sure, let’s knock it out,” Tehya declares.
More granite steps. And more scenic vistas appear. They pass the Ladder Trail, and Emery Path becomes Schiff Path.
Soon they are at the summit of Dorr Mountain. Finally!
“We made it, love, without having a heart attack.” Why would she say that? My heart is fine. Is her heart ok?
Walter spies Egg Rock in the Mt. Desert Narrows harbor that is now free of the wispy morning fog. “I can’t make out the lighthouse, nor the egg on the rock. Might the light be out in the egg-house?” Huh? Oh, no, this is going to get bad. Fast.
A nonsensical babble-a-thon in the offing. / Hope she bites on it. And swims away with it.
“We’re at an elevation of 1,270 feet, [387 meters] dear husband, and we’re 2.2 horizontal miles (3.54 km) south-southwest of downtown Bar Harbor, which is over there.
[points with her diminutive, slender, left index finger] Dorr Mountain was originally inhabited by the Wabanaki People, aka the People of the Dawn Land. Sorry, nothing to report about egg-houses.” She grimaces. She really enjoyed that closing remark.
Walter looks up from his cell phone. “Thanks for that briefing, sexy lady. Did you know that Caribou’s average January low and high temperatures are 1 and 20 – Fahrenheit, [-17° and
-7° Celsius] that is. Bar Harbor is a balmy 14 and 31.” [-10°
and -1° Celsius] A month of subfreezing highs. Not sure if I could do that. Well, maybe. Though, she doesn’t want to endure the winter here anymore. Cabin fever could run rampant.
Tehya then extracts a non-business card (below) from her fanny pack. “Remember this from last night, hon?” Wow!
She kept it. Superb souvenir.
Are You A Maine Matching Maven?
(Match each number with a letter.)
1. Augusta
a) Mount David summit
2. Bangor
b) formerly Lyndon
3. Bar Harbor
c) Old Fort Western
4. Brunswick
d) Levett’s 10 vanished
5. Caribou
e) from a Welsh tune
6. Lewiston
f) Pejepscot purchase
7. Portland
g) Acadia National Park
[Answers: 1. (c), 2. (e), 3. (g), 4. (f), 5. (b). 6. (a), 7. (d)]
“I sure do. I’m so glad that you kept it. It will be a great keepsake – a guaranteed conversation-starter three decades from now.” I’ll be 59. Gosh, seems so old. / If I’m still alive. Somehow I don’t think I’m going to be alive at 60.
Though, what do I know about the future? Not much at all, it often seems.
“I went five for seven. Remember?” 71.42857142857%.
“I do, hon. And I went one for seven. Just plain awful. Need to brush up on my Maine trivia.” Yep.
“Remember Stanley saying that he would buy us a round if either of us got six out of the seven correct?”
“Yep, I sure do. And you know what, my lovely princess?”
Princess! Yey!
“What, my prince?”
“That was an iron-clad-safe wager by sage bartender Stan.
You see, hon, there is no way to get six matches correct and one wrong. You can get six matches wrong and one correct
– like I did – and you can get five correct and two wrong, like you did – but there’s no way to get six right and one wrong.
The number of incorrect matches can never be one.” Such a numerical nerd. Now I’m going to surprise him.
“Kinda like the English Premier League – a club can never finish on 113 points.” Is that true? 37 – 1 – 0 = 112 points.
Wow! It is.
“Stellar observation, dear! Never realized that. Until just now.
Though, I can’t imagine a team ever getting above 107.
Thirty-eight matches – such a long season.”
“Liverpool [FC] certainly won’t have to worry about it.” Zing.
“Your Man[chester] City won’t, either, darling.” Doink.
Tehya grins. “Stanley’s self-description: ‘Me, I’m just a semi-buoyant, flab-a-dab crab slowly sinking in Frenchman Bay; though for me, there really is no other way’. Won’t forget that anytime soon.” Flab-a-dab-ulous. [sic]
“That parting line made me wonder if he’s a bit mental.” Will I wind up in an equivalent quandary?
“It probably wears on the psyche once one is in their mid-to-late 40s, seeing such affluence aloofly fluttering in, out, and about.”
“Yeah, probably so.”
Walter and Tehya would make it safely back down the mountain, and safely back to Charlotte two days later.
A year later they both change their minds: they want to have a baby. Tehya would give birth to a healthy daughter, Halona, on July 1st, 2025. They would bounce around Mecklenburg County for eleven years before relocating to West Jefferson (NC) in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Life was going well for the trio. However, that drastically changed in 2041 when Walter was hit and killed by a drunk driver while riding his e-bike on Hice Avenue. Then, just two weeks later, Tehya’s father would die from cardiac arrest in Ellsworth.
Tehya and Halona would move to the family house on Birch Avenue, as Tehya’s mother needed assistance, but wasn’t ready for a nursing home. Halona transferred to Tehya’s old high school (Mount Desert Island) for her junior and senior years. A model student, she would graduate with honors.
Tuesday, July 1st, 2053. Tehya extracts an unmarked box from her jam-packed bedroom closet. She opens the flaps.
The Maine-matching card from thirty years ago is staring back at her. What a wild four-day weekend. Wonder what happened to Stanley.
“What are you looking at, mom?” visiting, now-residing-in-Hulls Cove, 28-year-old, still-single Halona asks.
“Oh, just a memento from another time,” Tehya replies.
“Can I see it?” Halona begs excitedly. Wow! This tiny card sure piqued her interest. And got her to talk to me. Just as Walter predicted. Gosh, I miss him so much.
“Sure.” Fifty-nine-year-old Tehya hands the card to her brunette daughter. If she’s lesbian, I sure wish that she would just tell me. Does she really think that I would have a cow about it? She knows that Janie [a good friend] is lesbian. Don’t think she’s dated anyone in eight years. Is she asexual? Just don’t know how to tactfully broach this topic.
“Woah, these are kinda tough; think I only know three of them,” Halona confesses. “Where did you get this?”
“Your dad and I received it thirty years ago from a way-out-of-the-ordinary bartender named Stanley at Far-Flung Flavern. Is that place still open?”
“Yes, but new owners. Stanley left a curt note in the bar till one night seven years ago: ‘Moving on now.’ He hasn’t been seen since. Just disappeared.” Eden.
another pSecret pSociety pshort pstory
Jōhatsu to Portsmouth? by Mike Bozart (Agent 33) | late July 2024
Jōhatsu to Portsmouth?
by Mike Bozart
© 2024 Mike Bozart
Saturday, October 17, 2015 in downtown Portsmouth. It’s a sunny, breezy, reinvigoratingly coolish, coastal New England autumn afternoon. The New Hampshire Film Festival is in full swing and the streets and sidewalks are pack-a-zoid (very crowded). Though, the collective mood remains merrily inquisitive. Are we on camera now? Blurred-out-later extras?
So many independent filmmakers. It seems they’re everywhere. And cameras are so small now. Easily hidden.
In a second-floor, perfect-golden-rectangle-save-for-a-book-nook conference room overlooking Congress Street, bespectacled 37-year-old Kurt Zez Truk is broaching this week’s literary project to a seated septet: a coterie of assorted, semi-renegade-mentality, low-on-word-count, local writers known as Phlash-Phix-Pshun.
“Ok, cum laude comrades, today’s theme is jōhatsu. What in the world is jōhatsu? No, it’s not a hot-n-spicy rice-wrap dish; it’s the Japanese term for deliberate vanishing. Well, vanishing from one’s entire extended family, network of friends, and all acquaintances. Over 100,000 Japanese adults, and even some adolescents, intentionally disappear every year. The most common reason is societal shame from a lost prestigious job. Now, sadly, a significant percentage do indeed end up as suicides, but most are still very much alive. They are just out of sight of those who know them, going about a new life somewhere unbeknownst. Now, this is not just a Japanese phenomenon; it occurs in large numbers right here in the US, as well as in the UK, Germany, China, and South Korea. And probably in North Korea, too, but valid data is tough to come by these days; the official number is exactly zero. [clears his throat]
Now, can you come up with another very short piece – under 1,000 words – on jōhatsu? Ah, but there’s a catch. ‘Why, of course!’ I heard you think in unison. Actually, it's more of an additional requirement: your brief yarn must have a connection to our venerable port city. Don’t overthink it. Let it come to you. Allow those chill-turn-thrill vibes to permeate your cerebral cortex and set your innermost imagination free.
I’ll give you some time to mull it over. Back in ten.” [minutes]
The
smiling,
turtleneck-sweatered,
leatherette-loafered
Danish American exits the chestnut-chair-railed room. What an assignment! Again. His are always the most challenging.
Hmmm …
Celeste, a 22-year-old, sibling-less, Bolivian American, recent community college graduate is intrigued. She takes a sip from her thermos of matcha tea. Her mind is set in motion with an ingenious plot. Already got a story: mine. This landed right in my lap. Maybe an ambiguous sketch. Or narrow narrative. Must remain elusive. Walking a tightrope.
Can’t slip up and spill the beans.
“Got any ideas, Celeste?” Mr. Truk barks while she is looking down. Woah. Didn’t realize that he was back. So immersed in my own saga. Wonder if he’ll like it. Or any of the ‘kewl krew’. Well, here goes … / She’s been pondering something.
It’s so obvious. A new crush? A love poem?
“I sure do. Ok, here’s what I have so far. A Japanese man in his mid-20s from a rural prefecture loses his plum IT job in Tokyo. It’s devastating to Kazz, his birth name. When Kazz received confirmation of the EAI (emergent artificial intelligence) position, his parents were ecstatic. The whole village soon knew through the grapevine. He was the prodigy who was now making good in the mega metropolis.
How could he break this horrible news to his parents? Short answer: he couldn’t. So, what does Kazz do? He quickly befriends a Latina online who lives in Manchester – the Manchester 43 miles [69 km] west of here. They hit it off.
Things advance rather quickly. In just sixteen days, after residing in a cheap sleep-chamber pod, he is flying off to America with his cashed final paycheck and withdrawn savings – a grand total of $2,882. Kazz knows that there is now an air-travel record of his departure from Narita and his arrival at Logan. However, that’s where his paper trail would end, as his new girlfriend, Lucia, would pick him up at the Boston airport and drive him to her bleak-to-artsy-chic basement apartment on Blaine Street on the west side of town. Kazz’s spoken English, which he studied in school, is passable but not great. However, he can’t get another IT job because his whereabouts would then become known. So, Lucia gets him a paid-under-the-counter-in-cash kitchen gig at a nearby cantina. But, another Latina begins to pry. ‘Why does a smart-n-suave Japanese fellow wash dishes in a run-of-the-mill Mexican restaurant?’ she asks Kazz one April evening. This particular problem Nicaraguan hostess, María, whose own immigration status was in limbo, then begins questioning Lucia about she and Kazz’s circumstances.
Lucia begins to fear that María is about to slip INS an
anonymous tip that will lead to Kazz’s deportation. Lucia then decides that she can’t wait around to see whether or not such will happen. In the middle of a mid-May night, Lucia and Kazz drive in a 13-year-old sedan to Portsmouth – this Portsmouth – with only their clothes. They take up residence in a surprisingly cheap studio apartment in Durham [NH] that has numerous code violations; thus, the bargain rent of $600/month, all utilities included.”
An LED light bulb flickers overhead.
“Excellent, Celeste,” Kurt interjects. “Great mental toil. Well spun. Just a quick question: Has Kazz’s photo ever been shown on the BMA [Boston – Manchester Area] TV news, on any news websites, or on any social media sites?”
“Ah, I think you have just torpedoed my USS Albacore submarine, professor.” Professor? Am I coming off like that?
Old [AGSS-] 569. Maybe she went to the park recently.
“I’d only change one thing: the arrival airport – switch Logan to JFK [New York City] to get our media market out of the way of your enticing story,” Kurt suggests. “You’ve got a great outline, Celeste. Just fill it out in hyper-creative fashion.
You know, add some intriguing details. Have a few adjectives describing nouns they’ve never met. Just a few.
And maybe add a dollop of the surreal syrup.” ‘Have a few adjectives describing nouns they’ve never met’? What?! ‘a dollop of the surreal syrup’? Gosh, he’s so weird. Bet he’s single and living alone.
“Ok, will do, Mr. Truk,” Celeste dispassionately states.
“Anyone have anything else to add?” Kurt enquires.
“Wouldn’t Lucia’s parents be concerned about their daughter hauling off to a new town with some overseas mystery man that she had just met?” Kenna, a 30-ish, trendily attired Scottish American lady posits. “Would they not have his full name?”
“Only in altered Kanji,” Celeste quips.
<flash>
another pSecret pSociety pshort pstory
Eudaimonia in Vermont by Mike Bozart (Agent 33) | early August 2024